Currawalli Street (20 page)

He is known in the street as Lance From Up The Street or Upper Lance. He doesn't mind: they are better nicknames than some. The reason for the nicknames is so that Lance From Up The Street or Upper Lance is not confused with Lance From Down The Street, also known as Lower Lance. The two men are of roughly the same age, but of vastly different temperaments. Lance From Up The Street is calm, and happy to talk to people. Lance From Down The Street is reclusive and tense. They share the name and the street and the neighbours but that is all.

Upper Lance walks to his front gate and checks the letterbox. It is empty. He sees Jim from number ten run across the road and give something to a girl who is walking on the other side of the street, then turn and walk quickly home.

Jim must be a tortured young man, Lance assumes. He was a nice boy before he went to the war. He might still be a nice boy; Lance has not spoken to him since he was brought home from Vietnam. He remembers him as a kid who rode his bike a lot and sometimes sat out on the footpath and looked at Lance's house. He was good to talk to, kept Lance informed about things that he didn't know he was interested
in. Football. Rock and roll music. The World Surfing Championship.

Lance also assumes that Jim is suffering because he has not come home like a returning soldier should. Not that any of these soldiers will. According to Debra. The war in Vietnam has made everybody uncomfortable; rather than being grateful, the community hopes that if they ignore the soldiers they will disappear back into the streets and lanes where they came from. And the war can be forgotten.

Lance is forty-two years old. Debra is thirty-eight. They have one child, Pam, who is twelve. At the moment Pam is on holiday in New South Wales with her grandparents.

Debra comes to the front door. She calls to Lance, ‘Has he been?'

Lance shakes his head without turning. Debra doesn't move away from the screen door. She keeps looking at Lance. ‘He's late some days. He'll be here. Why don't you come inside and get ready for work?'

Lance turns to see her framed by the door like a painting. ‘I'll come in a second. I just want to look at something first.'

‘What?'

‘The apostle bird tree. They should be back by now.'

‘They are. I saw them yesterday when I went to see Val. Come in.' She smiles at him gently. That is enough to bring him up the path to the door. She holds it open then closes it behind him. Into her arms he slips and sinks away to another place. She knows this is what happens to him sometimes and she understands. She holds him until he takes a deep breath and sighs.

‘The day continues. Thank you.'

‘For what?'

‘For everything.'

Just then they hear the postman's whistle down the street. They look at each other. They don't have to say anything but what they both think is as loud as a shout. They step back outside and walk to the gate just as the postman reaches their letterbox. He hands them a duck-egg-blue envelope. He lets the whistle fall from his mouth.

‘G'day. Sorry I'm late. We're short three men down at the post office. Nice weather. They probably went to the beach. Looks like it'll stay like this for a while.'

‘It does. Although this is Melbourne—it might start to rain in a moment,' says Lance.

‘That's true. I'd better push on. Off to work soon?'

‘Yeah, soon. Just got time to read this letter. From my daughter. She's on holidays.'

‘Still? It's been six weeks now, hasn't it?' he asks. Debra smiles because the postman remembers.

‘Six weeks, four days.'

‘Miss her?' It is the postman's turn to smile.

‘A little. We're both used to there being three people in the house. Two makes it feel . . .'

‘Empty,' Debra finishes.

‘I understand,' the postman says. ‘My boy has gone to New Guinea with the church. My wife and I have trouble finding things to talk about. Just the two of us.'

‘New Guinea is a long way away. Our daughter has just gone to Sydney.'

‘Coming home soon?' he asks as he looks into the sack on his handlebars.

‘This letter will tell us. Your boy?'

‘Next week.'

‘How long has he been gone for?' Debra asks.

‘Six weeks. The same as your daughter. Have you got relations up there?'

‘My parents,' Lance says.

‘Are you a Sydney boy, then?'

‘No. I come from Albury, about halfway between both cities. I went one way, they went the other.'

‘Right. I must keep on. Cheers.' The postman cycles towards the church.

‘He didn't seem very interested in where I came from,' Lance says, scratching his chin.

Debra has torn open the blue envelope and is reading quickly. She looks up. ‘Two days' time. She's coming on the train. She wants to see the house as she goes past. No, he wasn't interested at all in where you come from. He was just being polite.' They walk back inside.

‘Two days. Better see if I can get some time off work. Speaking of which, I'd better go.'

Debra turns to him and smiles. Her mind is miles away. Lance doesn't notice. He kisses her on the cheek and walks quickly into the kitchen to pick up his bag and the dinner that he has made himself: cold lamb sandwiches. He looks at the clock on the wall. Five past six. He had better go or he will be late for night shift. He'd rather go to bed early with Debra. Tomorrow night will be their last night apart for this month, he decides. He will tell the foreman not to expect him for the next three nights after that. The thought makes him feel better.

As he walks out the front door, he imagines he can see the smoke from the factory's chimney in the distance. He walks out the front gate, down Currawalli Street and waves to Rodney up in the apricot tree. ‘Hello, Rod. Anything been happening?'

‘Two fire trucks went up Choppingblock Road at three twenty-five. They both returned at four oh nine.'

‘Trains on time?'

‘Yes. You catching the six eighteen?'

‘Yep. Have I got time?'

‘You'll have to hurry. But you should make it. Bye bye, Mr Barron.'

‘Bye, Rod. Say hello to your mum for me.'

‘Okay.' Rodney settles back down on the branch.

Lance thinks about Rodney and his mother Eve all the way to the station. Rodney is three years younger than Pam. Eve is the same age as Debra. Rodney spends most of the time he is not at school up in that apricot tree keeping a record of everything that happens in Currawalli Street and its surrounds. Lance feels for the boy but can't find any way to connect with him other than by discussing train running times. Some days that makes him feel sad. Rodney's dad was killed in a car crash five years ago. If Lance died, he would not like Pam to be so isolated, so unapproachable. Up in a fruit tree all day.

Eve is nice when she has the time to smile but more often than not she is being harried by tiny demons demanding her time, making her eyes sting, her nose runny, her breathing fast. But when she is allowed to stop and look at you, it is as if you are giving her a gift. Lance would like to hold her in his arms for a while. His intuition says that that is what she would want; not for any other reason than
to feel the warmth of another body. But he is not capable of explaining that to Debra or of dealing with whatever after effects there might be. No one believes a man can be an innocent when it comes to anything intimate.

As he walks onto the platform he sees the train coming. It is red and dirty at the front. It looks as if it has been going all day, which of course it has. As it stops, he pulls open the closest carriage door. Before he can step aboard, a woman steps out. It is Eve. Speak of the devil. Lance looks at her. There is something different about her. Lance notices that but cannot think what it might be.

She looks at him. ‘Hello, Lance, off to work?' She touches him on the arm. Her hand is warm.

‘Yes, I am. I just spoke to Rod. Asked him to say hello to you.'

‘I just waved to him from the train. Have a good night, Lance.'

Lance closes the door and the train moves out of the station. He sees Eve smiling to herself as she walks to the gate. She looks suddenly happy, Lance thinks. That's good. Something nice must have happened.

Rodney turns around in his apricot tree and looks up the street. He can see the pub and the path that runs behind his house. A lot goes on. He keeps a journal, a logbook of what planes fly overhead, who walks along the path, when trains go past, who goes into which houses. Eve has talked to a few different medical people about Rodney's obsession with statistics and his reluctance to engage with children his own age. He is liked by adults but ignored by other children. He is happy to keep his records and prefers not to be disturbed.

His record keeping is well known in the street. It is now commonplace to see him sitting high in his apricot tree, checking his watch and writing something down in his logbook. These days, whenever someone in the street does something or stops to chat with a neighbour they habitually glance over at the apricot tree to see if the boy is up there. It is a harmless thing for a boy to do. But like any type of observation it is only as harmless as the event being observed.

Rodney knows at what time each family in the street has dinner; he knows that the Hendersons always close the front curtain on the left and then the one on the right at six thirty every night whether the sun is still shining or not. He also knows that Mr Oatley used to have visits from a lady in a green car when his wife was away on holidays. And that the five police cars arrived at Mr Oatley's within a space of twelve minutes and that he had heard the first gunshot at sixteen past ten, the second at twenty-one past.

His records show that three days ago he saw Val's orange cat, whose name he thinks is Thomas (he put a question mark after the name), leaving her yard and walking up the footpath, going past the church, past the bowing soldier statue, past the reverend's house and into Peter Alexis's front yard. It is not the first time that Thomas has gone in there. He does so most days. Rodney watched until Thomas's tail disappeared behind the Chinese lantern bush.

Once Rodney saw Thomas arrive just as Peter was standing at the front gate. They showed such affection for each other that you might think that Peter was the owner of Thomas. That time they immediately went inside together.

But Thomas the cat is now missing. He hasn't been seen for three days.

Sally Domak, feet sore from the marching, throat sore from the chanting, stands at the back fence of the manse. She is not a keen gardener. She feels no affinity whatsoever with the soil. Her husband seems to walk more easily on this ground than she does, even though he is from the other side of the world and she was born here. Jan is in his office doing his records, as he does every night at this time. She picks up the spade and laughs. Her husband. Only once has she broached his . . . office work. Two hours a night on church records? He is not running an insurance business. There surely isn't that much written work to do. When she did say something, he replied by pushing a Bible across the table at her. Bibles! She hadn't realised that being married to a man of the cloth would involve so many Bibles. Sure, she expected some, but one in every room? One in the car? The garage?

If she was a jealous or a highly strung woman, she would march right over there and burst into his office. But she already knows what she would find, she just doesn't know who. And it would be harder to smile on Sundays as she is forced to if she had a face to recognise.

She will never tell her classmates about Jan's affairs. She will never tell them about his genuine need to conduct them. Not only does she not want them to think less of her for putting up with it, she doesn't want anybody to see her husband as another example of chauvinism run rampant. He isn't that. She is not sure what he is, but it isn't that.

She looks down at the crepe myrtle bush that has been blown over in a recent storm. Its roots have come out of the ground. She looks closer, between the roots. A small box lies newly exposed in the soil. She bends down and picks it up. It is covered in red embroidery that must once have been of great beauty but dirt and water have faded it. There are
initials sewn across the top in pale gold thread.
JT
. It opens easily.

A
lthough Currawalli Street is generally a peaceful place, Lower Lance is in the middle of a strange little war with Upper Lance: each of them tries to put out his rubbish bin ahead of the other. And the two men are the indicators for everyone else of when garbage day is; both Lances know that no one else in the street puts their bins out until either of them does.

Even though they have never discussed the war they are engaged in, both men know the rules. Bins must only be put out on the afternoon of the day before. Anytime after noon on the day preceding garbage day is allowable. In the morning is not permitted, and leaving them out on the nature strip all week is strictly prohibited. Touching the other's rubbish bin is not allowed either. The conflict is waged like a cavalry war of the seventeenth century, with a time and a field agreed on and battle only starting when each army is ready.

On one occasion, both Lances were carrying their bins out at the same time when they noticed that Craig Henderson, who had just moved into
number eight, had already placed his bin on the nature strip. Both men stopped in mid stride to look over at the Henderson bin. At that instant they both had the same thought: ‘New player in town.' That was the closest they have ever come to acknowledging that they are in a war on opposing sides.

Henderson was new in the street and eager not to miss out on bin day. The next week he was more relaxed; he put out his bin when he noticed Upper Lance's sitting out the front of number sixteen.

Most people in Currawalli Street know about the war and they look upon it as one of the foibles of their community, along with, say, the apostle birds, or the ‘T' that has recently fallen from the wall of the church, or Patrick's recitation of train timetables. It is something that just happens. There's no need to pay it much attention. Upper Lance doesn't talk to Debra about it but she knows. She shakes her head in mock despair when he takes out the bin.

And that's how it is in Currawalli Street. Strangers drive up the street only to visit the church; dogs that don't live in the area turn up sometimes and bark; casual strollers and people walking home from work in the next suburb use the path behind the houses. Sometimes people use the street to walk home from the pub, but only if they know the way around the back of the church that leads onto the next street to the east. It is a backwater of sorts.

Gail Henderson from number eight climbs up onto the bottom rung of the side fence and peers into the house next door, as she does every morning. She remembers hearing the first gunshot; by the time she had
turned down the TV and eliminated in her mind every possible cause for such a sound except a gunshot, the next one followed.

The first thing she did was climb up on the fence and look over to the back of number ten. She saw Mrs Oatley's legs poking through the bamboo string curtains at the back door. She blinked for a while before she realised that she might be in danger. She climbed off the fence and ran inside, slamming the door shut, then ran through the house locking all the windows. She thought about ringing Craig before she rang the police, but he would only tell her to hang up and dial emergency, and so she sat on the kitchen floor out of sight of the windows and dragged the phone down to her.

The police arrived quickly and eventually there was a knock at the door. She looked out the lounge-room window to make sure it was a detective knocking and not a murderer. She realised then that she couldn't tell the difference; the man knocking was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, had a gun on his hip and most likely hadn't shaved that morning. He looked like he might be a murderer. But there were enough police cars out on the street for her to assume that her life was not about to be put in danger.

She opened the door and told her story.

And that is why every day now she stands on the bottom rung of the side fence and looks at the back door. She can't get over the fact that she saw a fresh murder victim's legs sticking out over the door mat. The blood was still running fast but she was no longer Mrs Oatley, she was a dead body: a real murder victim.

Ever since they came to Currawalli Street, Gail and Craig Henderson have always been known as a pair. They are always known as ‘the Hendersons' or, if discussed individually, ‘one of the Hendersons'. They
have been lumped, packaged, boxed together. That is because they do everything together and one doesn't answer a question without a silent referral to the other. Even the smallest of societies needs a scapegoat and for the residents of Currawalli Street the Hendersons are it. They don't help themselves much. Gail tried to have all the peppercorn trees along the rail line removed. She has suggested to Mary to keep Patrick at home. To keep the ‘poor man' safe.

Craig is not much better. To illustrate this, the neighbours tell the story of the broom.

One day there was a broom leaning on the front fence of number seven. No one knew where it came from. Patrick swept his front path and veranda with it and then on an impulse leaned it on the front fence of number five, in case it belonged there. A few days later, old Mr Travers swept his path with the broom and placed it in front of number three. Bill Casey swept his path and the gutter with it and leaned it against the fence of number one. Rodney came down from his tree and swept the yard and then Eve took it across the street to number two. And so it made its way around the street. By the time it was worn out, it had been around seven times and Kim Oatley replaced the head without thinking about it too much. And so on it went.

Until the Hendersons came. Craig Henderson discovered it leaning on his front fence as he was leaving for work one morning and he snapped it in half and threw it beside his rubbish bin, planning to throw it out when the garbage truck was next around. The handle snapping was heard metaphorically around the street and the snap marked the Hendersons as outsiders who didn't really want to belong and most likely didn't deserve to.

Gail Henderson steps down from the fence just as a train passes her yard, straining up the rise. A boy is leaning out the window, and the train is moving slowly enough for the boy to make eye contact with Gail. He waves. She doesn't. It's not that she doesn't want to, it's just that she is too busy with her day. And besides, the boy shouldn't be leaning that far out the window. What is his mother thinking to let him behave so dangerously?

The postman is running on time today, and he delivers two letters to number seven, both addressed to Mary. One is from her sister in London; she will read this later and savour every copperplate word. The other is in an official envelope marked victorian railways. With a sudden twinge of dread, she opens it.

Dear Mrs Cummings,

It has come to my attention that your husband Patrick Cummings has been harassing our customers regularly at Choppingblock Station. I must therefore ask you to ensure that he henceforth refrains from doing so. He is permitted on railway property only as a paying customer. I notify you in this way as a courtesy due to his forty years of service. I have no wish to notify the authorities, but should Mr Cummings's behaviour continue I will have no choice.

I trust that this letter has found you well.

Yours sincerely,

Bernard Sweeney

Victorian Railways Manager, Western Lines

Still standing at the front fence, Mary can hear Patrick inside the house singing to himself. She scratches her head and looks along the footpath. Perhaps she is looking for someone to help her. Perhaps she is just trying to get her mind around this. That it is an insult, she is certain.
It also has the potential to break Patrick's spirit and maybe his will to go on living. That she will not have. A curse on Mr Bernard Sweeney, Victorian Railways Manager, Western Lines. He would not even have a job if Patrick had not done his own so well. The father cuts down the trees, digs up the roots, puts up the fences, sleeps in the cold. The son grows up and looks down from his tower on all the green pastures and the warm farmhouse as if they have always been there. So it is with the railways. Mary shakes her head.

She notices Jim standing across the road in his front yard also holding a letter. She smiles at him. On an impulse she calls him over. He slowly walks towards her.

‘I have yet to welcome you home,' Mary says contritely.

‘Thanks very much. It feels . . . sort of strange to be back.'

‘I'm sure it does. I wish you had returned in better circumstances. Are you coping alright in there on your own?'

‘Well, to be honest, I have grown used to a faster pace of living. This slowness is beginning to unsettle me.'

‘Ah . . . good. I don't mean it like that. I mean . . .' She thinks for a while. Mary was once a weak woman who has had to grow strong. Jim can sense that. She stands like a well-established tree that was staked crookedly when it was first planted.

She suddenly changes tack. ‘Jim, would you like a job? A temporary one?'

‘Doing what?'

‘Turning our front veranda into a railway station platform.' Seeing Jim's surprised expression, she shows him the letter and then tells him about Patrick and his routine. ‘It never bothered anybody before. The
new stationmaster keeps saying that Patrick is an asset. The passengers are all friendly. No one seems to mind. Except . . .' She looks over at number eight. The Hendersons' place.

‘Ah,' Jim says. He has no wish to involve himself in any neighbourhood disputes. But a bit of hard physical work might be just what he needs. The army taught him to build, and he wouldn't mind putting those skills to use. ‘Have you any idea how you want it done?'

‘Well, the notion has only just come to me. For a start, the steps should be at the end of the veranda and not at the front. Can you do that?'

‘I think so. There's not much to it. When do you want me to start?'

‘Whenever you can. The sooner the better. It will break Patrick's heart if he realises what the railways have done to him.'

‘I can start right now. I'm not doing anything except trying to find the courage to start clearing my mum's clothes out of her wardrobe.'

‘I can do that for you. Let me. I would like to be able to do something to help.'

‘In that case I can start straightaway. Thank you, Mary.'

‘Patrick has some tools in his shed . . .'

‘And I still have Dad's tools.'

‘Come and have a look then.' She opens the gate for him but he holds up a finger and takes a step backward.

‘I had better lock the front door first. I'll just be a second.' He hurries back over the road. Mary wonders why he needs to lock his door when he will only be across the street. The younger generation. Perhaps it is something they do.

Jim returns and they walk to the steps, centrally located at the front of the veranda. A path leads from them to the front gate.

‘We can lay a path from the new steps. I'll dig up the old one after I have finished the new one. The first thing is to shift the step.' He bends down for a closer look. ‘I would be inclined to use new timber rather than try to salvage the timber from this step.'

‘Of course. This step is as old as the house. It was built in 1914, so it is probably due to be replaced.'

‘Is the hardware shop still in Battlefield Street?'

‘Yes, it is. Still the same people running it.'

‘Old Mr Berbain?'

‘Yes, Mr Birdbrain. Still there. Still grumpy.'

Jim nods. ‘I'll work out what we need and walk around there now.'

‘Thanks Jim, I really appreciate this. If Patrick asks what you're doing, you can tell him you are replacing some rotten wood.'

About to turn away, Mary stops. ‘Jim, what about payment?'

‘A cup of tea, some of that coronation cake you used to make and the odd sandwich. That'll do. The army is still paying me.'

‘That doesn't seem fair . . .'

‘It's fair. We're neighbours. It all balances out in the end. I'll be happy to have a project to do. You still make the coronation cake?'

‘I do. I'll bring you out a piece with a cup of tea when you get back from Birdbrain's.' Mary watches him leave through the gate. When she went out to collect the post this morning, she wasn't even contemplating turning the veranda into a railway platform. Now, fifteen minutes later, it is all happening. She turns towards the house. Patrick is still singing to himself.

I like his voice, she thinks to herself. I always have.

Lower Lance is sitting in his car, parked in the driveway of number two. He doesn't drive it much nowadays. He has nowhere really to go. His sister moved to Norway a year ago and she was the only person he ever used the car to visit. So now he sits in the driveway. When he hears people walking past his front fence, he pretends to be looking at something under the dashboard but the rest of the time he just sits there. It is really comfortable and the windscreen being so close means that everything looks filtered and a little bit distorted. And nowadays he prefers that to the real world. He knows that he is acting like a really old person and that he isn't even close to being that old. In fact he is only forty-seven, but life has just got too difficult for him.